Scorched Apple gasped as his eyes opened, his heart beating fast. As he calmed down and his heart slowed, he looked around at his surroundings. He was in a wrecked building. He slowly stood up and looked out of a window.

Where am I? he thought. He looked out at several other wrecked buildings. Suddenly an orange light appeared in a window of the building opposite him. Scorched Apple froze and tried to make out the body of whatever it was that was looking at him. Suddenly it's eye turned bright red and it jumped through the window and started running towards him. It looked like a robotic velocoraptor, without a mouth. Scorched Apple yelled and lit his hand on fire, aiming it at the thing. It started to jump, but then something it the side of its head. It sparked and fell over. Scorched Apple extinguished his hand and looked for whatever had killed the beast. A whistling sound came from some tall grass near him, and as Scorched Apple started walking towards it, he noticed that some of it looked a little like hair. As he got nearer, he realized that it was hair. A girl was crouched low in the grass with an arrow nocked in her bow.

"What are you doing here?"the girl asked. "That watcher could've killed you!"

"That's what it's called?" Scorched Apple asked. "Where am I?"

"Devil's Thirst," the girl said. "You don't know what it's called?"

"No!" Scorched Apple said. "This is where I was teleported to!" The girl frowned.

"Teleported?" she said slowly. "What is that?"

"To disappear from one spot and appear in another," Scorched Apple said. "Who are you?"

"I'm Aloy," the girl said. "Is your skin red?" It was Scorched Apple's turn to frown.

"Yes," he said. "Is that strange?"

"Very," Aloy said. "I've seen some strange things over the last few days, but not someone with red skin. Are you one of G.A.I.A's creations?"

"Who?" Scorched Apple asked. "And no, I wasn't created by Gaia."

"G.A.I.A isn't important right now," Aloy said. "But what is important right now is figuring you out."

"I don't know where I am, and I've never seen something like that...Watcher, is that what you called it? Look, I need help, and you know a lot about where we are and what that watcher thing was," Scorched Apple said.

"Yes, but wasn't your hand on fire?" Aloy asked. "How did you do that, by the way?"

"It was a part of this fusion core thing," Scorched Apple said. "But can you help me?" Aloy sighed.

"Well, sure," she said. "But if you end up as some kind of thing helping H.A.D.E.S or the Shadow Carja, what happened to the watcher will happen to you, faster than you can summon your fire. You'll need to explain more about that later, by the way, but for now, you need to help me get to that Tallneck." Scorched Apple was about to ask what that was when he realized that there had been a sound coming from behind him for a while. He turned around, and for a few seconds, somehow didn't notice the tallneck. And when he did, he gasped. It was like a metal giraffe, with a UFO looking head instead of a normal giraffe head.

"That's a tallneck?" he asked.

"Yes, and it has data that I need," Aloy said. "Wait here, I'll go override it. There may be some more machines ready to attack once I override it." Aloy start to sprin toward the tallneck, and made supriseingly little sound. She paused and looked back at Scorched Apple for a moment, but only a moment. She turned back around and disappeared behind a building. Scorched Apple looked around at at the wrecked buildings and rusted over machines.

What happened here? he thought. These much damage couldn't just come from those watchers, could it have? I doubt it. Their small, and Aloy was able to take that one down in one blow. He stared at the wreckage and thought for another minute or so when the tallneck started to spark. In the moonlight, he saw Ally running towards the edge of the head and jumped off. Scorched Apple was about to start yelling in panic when Aloy twisted around and threw something up at it's head. Her desert started to slow imedietly, and disappeared behind the tops of some more trees. A few seconds later, Aloy came sprinting out of them. When she reached Scorched Apple, she stopped.

"So, now to figure out what to do with you," she said. "By the way, I never asked for your name. What is it?"

"I'm Scorched Apple," Scorched Apple said. Aloy frowned.

"Scorched Apple?" she repeated slowly. "You really aren't from around here, are you?"

"No, no I'm not," Scorched Apple said. "Now, we need to work something out until I figure out how to get back home. Can I join you?" Aloy sighed.

"Sure," she said. Then she grinned. "I've always wanted a sidekick." Scorched Apple grinned.

"Ok, sure," he said. "Now, where will we sleep?" Aloy shrugged.

"There's a campfire nearby, and I could probably stitch together some furs to make a blanket for you, if you want," Aloy said. She turned around and started walking. "Follow me."

"Do you already have a blanket?" Scorched Apple asked as he walked beside Aloy.

"No," she said. "Don't worry, I'll be fine. I've been training in the wilds for about 13 years." Scorched Apple stared at her with awe.

"13 years?" he asked. "Wow, you must be good."

"I am pretty good," Aloy said. "But enough flattery. That won't make you survive for very long in the wilds. Tomorrow, I start teaching you some of the things that will help you survive while we figure out exactly what to do with you."

"Training? Ok, that seems fair," Scorched Apple said. "Can you teach me that rope thing you did when you jumped off the tallneck?"

Author's Note

Ok, finally got this published! Sorry it took so long. Hope you like it!